301
I understand that Mr. Ching is contemplating a book about the major families of Hong Kong, descended from successful men who came here in the 19th century with little more than their wits. On the showing of his first historical work, I cannot think of a more suitable person to undertake this task than Mr. Ching, and I hope that, warts and all, he gets all the cooperation and understanding of the requirements of the job from the families concerned.
From there, or in the process, he could perhaps take up the true history of families great and small during the years of the Japanese Occupation of the colony, where the same rules apply. The job needs to be done, because of the way in which leading families have shunned the very mention of these years. Shanghai was not the only place where, as Mr. Ching writes (p. 458), the returning authorities looked down on those who had lived under the Japanese as tainted.
JAMES HAYES
Mind Landscapes: the Paintings of C. C. Wang, by Jerome Silbergeld, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington Press (Seattle and London), 1987.
132 pp. + plates, bibliography, index, US$40.00 (cloth); US$19.95 (paper).
C. C. Wang is certainly one of the most intriguing Chinese artists in the later twentieth century. His life chronicles cataclysmic changes many Chinese have endured and his path — artist, collector, connoisseur, businessman and exile was rarely clear. He was called upon to continuously redefine his relationship with China and the West as he travelled, explored and matured.
Having been born into a Suzhou family of mandarins in Imperial China in 1907 and having had a traditional Chinese education till the age of 14 assured young Wang the basis for blossoming into a twentieth-century version of the literati. But young Wang longed for a Western-style education, into which he switched at age fourteen and from which he went on to study law in Shanghai at China's distinguished Suzhou Law School. But his art education, which started as he learned to read and write, was carried on simultaneously and ever more seriously. Over time he had many art teachers and, indeed, became a teacher himself at an early age.
301
I understand that Mr. Ching is contemplating a book about the major families of Hong kong, descended from successful men who came here in the 19th century with little more than their wits. On the showing of his first historical work, I cannot think of a more suitable person to undertake this task than Mr. Ching, and I hope that, warts and all, he gets all the cooperation and understanding of the requirements of the job from the families concerned.
From there, or in the process, he could perhaps take up the true history of families great and small during the years of the Japanese Occupation of the colony, where the same rules apply. The job needs to be done, because of the way in which leading families have shunned the very mention of these years. Shanghai was not the only place where, as Mr. Ching writes (p. 458), the returning authorities looked down on those who had lived under the Japa- nese as tainted.
JAMES HAYES
Mind Landscapes: the Paintings of C. C. Wang, by Jerome Silbergeld, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington Press (Seattle and London), 1987.
132 pp. + plates, bibliography, index, US$40.00 (cloth); US$19.95 (paper).
C. C. Wang is certainly one of the most intriguing Chinese artists in the later twentieth century. His life chronicles cataclys- mic changes many Chinese have endured and his path — artist, collector, connoisseur, businessman and exile was rarely clear. He was called upon to continuously redefine his relationship with China and the West as he travelled, explored and matured.
Having been born into a Suzhou family of mandarins in Imperial China in 1907 and having had a traditional Chinese edu- cation till the age of 14 assured young Wang the basis for blossom- ing into a twentieth century version of the literati. But young Wang longed for a Western-style education, into which he switched at age fourteen and from which he went on to study law in Shanghai at China's distinguished Suzhou Law School. But his art education, which started as he learned to read and write, was carried on simultaneously and ever more seriously. Over time he had many art teachers and, indeed, became a teacher himself at an early age.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.